For Grandad whose Bryce Canyon story sent me looking for this one and of course for David A B P Dedicated to my parents who kept the family together through tough times in a culture and country they knew very little about R L Special thanks to Yenyen F Chan Park Ranger Yosemite National Park for her invaluable expertise and for her unflagging patience with my stream of questions A B P
Tie Sing was a frontier baby born high in the mountains in Virginia City Nevada Growing up he breathed crisp Sierra air and scuffed through sagebrush He learned to write in both English and Chinese 3
America was a tough place to be Chinese Bosses paid Chinese workers less than white workers Townsfolk spat out Chinese names like they’d swallowed river gravel Most people with Chinese names ended up cooking in restaurants or washing clothes in laundries Tie Sing though had American dirt under his fingernails and dreams as big as the country he loved Cramped shacks weren’t for him He made plans big plans
He got a job cooking for mapmakers as they tramped through the mountains naming peaks With sky for his ceiling and sequoias for his walls he stirred silky sauces broiled succulent steaks and tossed crisp salads In his sheet-metal oven he baked sourdough rolls as light as the clouds drifting above the peaks His reputation grew the best trail cook in California 5
